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The present invention relates to remote control devices for electronic devices, and more particularly to a remote control device which has programmable favorite keys to allow quick access to preselected favorite channels or programs.
Remote control devices for electronic devices have come into wide use recently. Using such remote control devices, the user can operate the main function of the electronic device from far away. A wide range of electronic devices can be remotely controlled. The examples include home electronic equipment such as television sets, videotape recorders, stereo receivers, compact disk players, and other electronic devices used in business environment.
A remote control device controls an electronic device by transmitting command data as command signals having predetermined modulated carrier frequencies using infrared signals or electromagnetic signals. Because different manufacturers and often different electronic devices made by the same manufacturer use different command signal structures, the original remote control that comes with the electronic device generally cannot be used to control a different electronic device. To solve that problem, various types of so-called universal remote controllers have been made to control several electronic devices using only one remote controller. These universal remote controllers are either a learning type or a preset type, or a combination of these two types. A learning remote controller can learn and remember the proper individual command signals from an original remote control unit. A preset universal remote controller has a memory to store a manufacturer selected collection of different signal structures. Each signal structure corresponds to a specific electronic device and is associated with a special code. The user can select a desirable signal structure by entering the corresponding special code. The combination type universal remote controllers have both the learning and the preset feature. For example, the remote controller may have a collection of preset signal structures stored in its memory, but the remote controller automatically recognizes a special code associated with a specific signal structure when the remote controller learns a command signal from another remote controller. The advantage oft his type of remote controller is that they do not require manual selection or entrance of the device code by the user.
A universal remote control therefore helps to solve a problem caused by the variety electronic devices and lack of compatibility among them. The users of remote controllers, however, face another problem caused by the variety and complexity of the content and programming available through electronic devices. For example, a television may be capable of receiving hundreds of programming channels through cable or satellite. Multiple channel programming offers rich content to the end users but also makes selecting desired programs more and more difficult, especially so when the selection is made using a remote controller.
As an illustration, consider a television set owned by a family of several members. The television set is capable of receiving more than a hundred different channels, each channel having a unique channel identifier, such as a unique channel number consisting of one or several digits. The channels can be selected either on the television set or on a remote controller, but more typically on the latter. The remote controller has a set of command keys including a group of numeric keys such as 0-9. To select a specific channel, the user presses the corresponding channel number on the numeric keys on the remote controller. The remote controller usually also has channel shifting keys such as a CHANNEL UP key and a CHANNEL DOWN key that can be used to switch channels without entering the specific numeric code. In this setting, the difficulty of selecting channels comes at different conflict levels.
First, some of the channels may be empty, i.e., do not carry any program signal at the place where the family lives or in the service to which the family has subscribed. To avoid facing empty displays or the xe2x80x9csnowing screensxe2x80x9d, the television set must be scanned and indexed to skip these empty channels. Most television sets have a scanning and indexing function built in. When indexed, operations of the CHANNEL UP key and the CHANNEL DOWN key shift the working channel from the present channel to the next indexed channel but skip the non-indexed channels. These unindexed channels can be accessed only by entering their corresponding numeric code on the remote controller.
Second if a large number of channels are indexed, another problem occurs. A certain member of the family may watch only a few channels among the indexed channels. For this family member, it is inefficient to find his or her favorite channels by going through the entire set of the indexed channels using the CHANNEL UP key and the CHANNEL DOWN key. To quickly access the favorite channels, the person may have to memorize the specific numeric codes for each of the favorite channels, a task which is not always easy given the large number of channels available.
Third, even if the person manages to memorize the numeric codes of the favorite channels, it is still cumbersome to enter the numeric codes on the remote control because very often each code involves multiple digits. In this case, not only does pressing multiple keys one at a time itself takes longer time than pressing a single key, but also it is not always intuitive to locate the next numeric key on the keyboard of the remote controller.
Finally, with more and more electronic devices being used and more and more programs and channels being made available, the remote controllers are becoming progressively complicated and difficult to learn and use. This may be a blessing for people who are gadget oriented but an inconvenience or an obstacle for the less tech-minded. In addition, certain groups of people may find an ordinary remote controller available today simply too overwhelmingly difficult to use, either because of their age or disabilities. From another point of view, some people who are capable of learning how to use a more complicated remote controller may prefer a simplified remote controller anyway simply because of their lifestyles.
To solve the above problems, some remote controllers use favorite channel keys. The Weemote(trademark) made by Fobis Technologies Inc., for example, has several favorite keys. Each favorite key can be programmed as the unique access key for a favorite channel so that when the favored key is pressed the remote controller transmits the unique channel identifier code to the television and switches the channel to the associated favorite channel. To program the favorite key on a Weemote(trademark), the user must know the unique channel number of the favorite channel and enter that number correctly during programming. This still has several problems. First, it is not always easy to remember channel numbers which often have two or even three digits. Second, a viewer usually chooses a favorite channel based on program content that he sees on the screen and often does so with no knowledge of or pays no attention to the actual channel number he is choosing. Third, even if the person knows the favorite channel numbers, entering such numbers on the remote control keyboard may still be found an undesirable task to perform (even if it is required only during programming). Fourth, such remote controllers must have a set of numeric keys to facilitate the entries of channel numbers as channel identifiers, making the remote controller bulky and complicated, a problem further discussed below.
Conventional remote controllers usually have a complete numeric keyboard including numeric keys 0-9 or more. These numeric keys tend to make layout crowded and complicated. They also mandate a larger size of the remote controller to implement the keys. In an attempt to solve this problem, the Weemote(trademark) provides a special way of entering channel numbers. Instead of requiring a full numeric keyboard for the 0-9 keys, the Weemote(trademark) has only three numeric keys, specifically xe2x80x9c100xe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9c10xe2x80x9d, and xe2x80x9c1xe2x80x9d. To further improve the appearance of the remote controller, the above three numeric keys are located on the back of the remote controller under a cover. The simplified numeric keyboard, however, comes at a price of more complicated entering process. For example, to enter channel 189, instead of pressing the key xe2x80x9c1xe2x80x9d once, the key xe2x80x9c8xe2x80x9d once and the key xe2x80x9c9xe2x80x9d once the user must press the key xe2x80x9c100xe2x80x9d once, the key xe2x80x9c10xe2x80x9d eight times and the key xe2x80x9c1xe2x80x9d nine times. In view of this, it is desirable to have a remote controller that doesn""t require numeric keys for entering channel numbers. Such remote controllers would not only be less complicated but also have a less cluttered appearance.
There is therefore a need to make a remote controller that is straightforward in appearance and simple to use. There is a parallel need to make a remote controller that has one or more favorite keys that can be easily programmed to give quick access to the user""s favorite channels without requiring memorizing or knowing a channel identifier. There is yet another parallel need to make a remote controller that does not have numeric input keys in addition to the favorite keys.
Using programmable favorite keys to quickly access a favorite channel is not new. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,959,810 and 5,414,426, for example, disclose MACRO keys that can be programmed to directly access a favorite channel. The difference between these MACRO keys and the programmable favorite keys according to the present invention will be clear once the invention is described in comparison with the prior art.
In principle, in order to program a favorite key, the favorite channel must first be identified. The channel identifying information or a channel identifier must then be conveyed and assigned to a designated favorite key to program the key for the favorite channel. In the prior art, channel identifiers used to identify favorite channels are in a sense xe2x80x9cabsolute identifiersxe2x80x9d. A channel number, for example, is in a sense absolute because it is unique and fixed for the corresponding channel given the local network programming in the case of a television set. Correspondingly, once a channel identifier is conveyed and assigned to a designated favorites channel, the infrared or electromagnetic command signal generated to activate a particular channel is also specifically programmed to have the required frequency, duration and other aspects of the signal pattern to directly activate the corresponding favorite channel. As long as a channel is identified by an absolute identifier only, such absolute identifier must be entered and assigned to the designated favorite key in order to program the favorite key. In the existing technology, the communication between a remote controller and a home electronic device is mostly a one-way communication going from the remote controller to the electronic device. Specifically, only the remote controller transmits command signals to the electronic device, not vice versa. In the present example, although the controlled electronic device itself may readily have the absolute channel identifying information of a present channel, it does not actively convey such channel identifying information to the remote controller. As a result, the user must first have knowledge of the channel identifying information and then enter the information into the remote controller. Due to the above intrinsic requirements, as long as the channels are identified by absolute channel identifiers only, both the user knowledge of the channel identifying information and input means on the remote controller to enter such information are necessary elements for remote controllers that employ programmable favorite keys. Any further simplification to omit these elements would require a breakthrough in conferring a new way of identifying favorite channels.
The present invention is a remote controller that has at least one favorite key, which when programmed allows direct access to the corresponding favorite channel without requiring the user to enter the actual channel number of the favorite channel. In programming the favorite key, an index number representing a relative index position of a channel, rather than an absolute channel identifier such as a channel number, is used to identify a corresponding favorite channel. As a result, not only can the user access a favorite channel quickly and directly by pressing a favorite key, the user can easily program favorite key without having the knowledge of absolute channel identifying information such as channel numbers or having to enter such information on the remote controller.
In one embodiment of the present invention, only the relative position of a favorite channel in a set of indexed channels on the controlled electronic device is required to program a favorite key. The relative position of a favorite channel is defined in relation to a predetermined base channel and is represented by an index number and it can be easily determined.
In one embodiment of the present invention, the process is further simplified by a program in the remote controller allowing the index number of a favorite channel to be determined automatically when the user scans through the set of indexed channels to locate the favorite channel. The very act of locating a favorite channel on the target electronic device using the remote controller generates the necessary information to determine the index number of the favorite channel. After determining the index number of the favorite channel, the program assigns the information of such index number to the corresponding favorite key.